auto power off

theeschen

New member
I would like my return pump set up so it did not come back on if the power went off and returned. We had a power outage this week and when the power returned, for some reason my overflow box lost the siphon and I had a little spill. Not much, I was home, but I would rather reset it manually. Any advice would be appreciated.
 
My suggestion would be to research and fix the overflow box so it would not lose siphon to begin with.
 
Great idea, in fact my goal, but the fact is that these devices do seem to loose their siphon sometimes even when they have behaved flawlessly for months and months as mine has. The power has been off dozens of times with out trouble but this one time, an ice and wind storm, the power failure was troublesome, it cut out and back on 3 or 4 times in about a minute (I was home at the time) and that may be what hurt the siphon. Hard to prevent that unless I pick up a UPS.
 
I don't know of anything off the shelf that would do this...but you can DIY something. You'll need a relay and a momentary switch. Wire the switch up to the relay in a "latching" mode such that power to the pump only occurs once the momentary switch has been pushed. Power will remain on until the main power goes off (thus the term "latching"). Do a search for "latching relay" to get some basic diagrams...you'll need to replace the typically float switch setup with the momentary switch...

Personally though...I'd just get the overflow fixed.

Another option is to add some float switches to the tank and/or sump to cut power to the pump in the event of a siphon break (set the float switches up to detect low sump water or high tank water).
 
Just a thought have you ever considered getting a lifereef overflow. They are spendy but they honestly do not lose siphon. I have no commercial relation with them, but I purchased one before going to a reef ready tank and loved mine.
 
I haven't considered it, but just googled lifereef and got nowhere.

I had a reef ready 29 but the overflow box gave me much more flow than the drilled tank.
 
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